IR FOCAL PLANE ARRAY MULTIPLEXING - NEW APPROACH

AN IMPORTANT PROBLEM IN THE AREA OF IR FOCAL PLANE ARRAY IMAGING IS THE FAST AND EFFICIENT MULTIPLEXING AND PROCESSING OF THE SIGNALS FROM THE DETECTOR ARRAY. A NEW APPROACH TO THIS PROBLEM UTILIZING THE RECENTLY DEVELOPED ACOUSTIC CHARGE TRANSPORT (ACT) DEVICE IS PRESENTED. THE ACT DEVICE COMBINES SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVE AND CHARGE TRANSPORT TECHNOLOGIES TO ACHIEVE A LOW-NOISE, HIGH-THROUGHPUT MULTIPLEXER IMPLEMENTED IN GALLIUM ARSENIDE WHICH OFFERS THE POTENTIAL FOR ADDITIONAL ON-PLANE PROCESSING. THE PROPOSED PROGRAM USES AN EXISTING ACT DEVICE TO DEMONSTRATE AND EVALUATE THE ACT MULTIPLEXER. THIS DEVICE WILL BE OPERATED AT CRYOGENIC TEMPERATURES USING VISIBLE LIGHT AT THE INPUTS TO SIMULATE AN IR DETECTOR ARRAY. EXPERIMENTAL MEASUREMENTS OF FUNDAMENTAL PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS SUCH AS NOISE LEVEL, CHARGE CAPACITY, AND PIXEL-TO-PIXEL UNIFORMITY WILL BE MADE AND COMPARED TO THEORY. THE RESULTS WILL BE EXTRAPOLATED ANALYTICALLY TO PROJECT THE PERFORMANCE OF AN OPERATIONAL ACT IR FOCAL PLANE ARRAY MULTIPLEXER.